


to the sticking place

by consumptive_sphinx



Category: Amenta - Alicorn
Genre: Caste Shenanigans, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-18 23:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12398433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consumptive_sphinx/pseuds/consumptive_sphinx
Summary: Prince Otsana Nakselai of Asfat dies childless and without an heir the year that Arken turns six.Arken knows any number of things. First and foremost: to claim an opportunity when he sees one.





	to the sticking place

Prince Otsana Nakselai of Asfat dies childless and without an heir the year that Arken turns six.

The Prince was unmarried. He died of whispering cough, a rare wasting illness that attacked his lungs; it was not genetic in origin, as far as anyone can tell, but antibiotics didn't help and there was no other cure from the doctors of Asfat. Two of his three sisters have already abdicated; the third is long dead. By the time Arken hears the news from his coworker’s friend it has been six hours and one of Prince Otsana’s cousins has been named Regent.

It is not quite a national tragedy, but Otsana was known as a kind man, a defender of his nation. Arken could be genuinely sad, but even at six he knows the world too well to grieve a figure he never knew. Sometimes Princes die; sometimes they even die of incurable illness at eleven, somehow still unmarried, somehow still childless. _He was waiting to find a woman he truly loved,_ went the story whenever anyone asked how he endured those seven lonely, unnecessarily empty springs, but Arken can think of any number of more plausible answers.

What's more, he knows an opportunity when he sees one. Prince Otsana spent time in purple districts, Prince Otsana took long vacations in spring and summer, and Prince Otsana was strangely and inexplicably childless; Arken can manufacture more evidence if he needs it, but there is enough there already that he thinks he may not even have to.

And Arken’s face looks a bit like Prince Otsana’s, in dim light, if you’re looking for similarities. He can almost convince himself, in the early hours of the morning, when flights of fancy seem like they could be truth.

Arken’s hair is dyed a brilliant color of orchid. He does not dye it blue now, however much he wants to. Instead, he lets his roots show: a dark, beautiful, _ambiguous_ indigo. Seen against the orchid in artificial light, it might as well be sapphire, azure, peacock blue.

He has seen the way blues speak on television, has seen the way they hold themselves, has paid closer attention than most. His best imitation of a blue accent isn't quite right, too clipped and not polished enough, but if he relaxes it a bit he gets a convincing mixture of blue and purple. He isn't claiming to have been brought up blue, after all.

Arken is purple born and raised, and so he has had this lesson drilled into him since birth: he must be resourceful and he be must determined, because nothing will ever be handed to him for the color of his hair. That isn't strictly true, Arken thinks, and touches his indigo roots, but still — he knows to claim an opportunity when he sees one.

* * *

The yellows in the capital building are skeptical when Arken declares himself Prince Otsana’s child, and the blues are even more so. He expected them to be.

He has stories to tell of the blue who visited every other day of the spring he turned one, of the man who did not treat him as a family most of the time but who always treated him well — he invokes truths he does not like to speak of, like the time in the winter he was two when he had a fever so high he thought he was going to die, and adds careful lies to them, like a warm body holding him close and whispering “you’ll be alright, you’ll be alright” until the fever broke and he believed it, when in reality he had been left alone and terrified under blankets while his mother was at work — and he tells them well. Arken has put thought into this deception.

He did not know Prince Otsana. If his stories of the man are completely out of character for the man than he'll be found out, and likely executed, but he knows Otsana’s reputation and knows him to have been a kind man, playful with his sisters’ children and clipped when speaking to adults. It is not a personal relationship, but Arken isn't claiming to have seen Otsana’s face since he was three; he doesn't need one.

Arken cries, just barely enough to play the grieving son. Prince Otsana meant little to him but Arken can act as well as any stage green, which is enough that they at least look considering, even if no promises are made.

* * *

It works; or at least, it works as well as Arken had any right to hope. Apparently Arken was right that Prince Otsana had a secret family among purples, even though he is lying about the particulars, and his impression of the Prince’s character is close enough to the truth that nobody thinks his stories strange.

And — as the late Prince’s child — Arken has the strongest claim to the throne of Asfat.

The reign of Arken Nakselai, Hidden Prince of Asfat, is prosperous and long.


End file.
